Seasonal temperatures and only a slight chance of rain might allow the sun to shine on the 1950's theme traditional Christmas Parade, which has a whooping seventy-five entries this year.
Shopping close to home offers us the savings in time and fuel that would be wasted trying to find a parking space in a big city mall, fighting crowds and risking life and limb on the busy highways.
Another way to avoid the stress of holiday shopping is to do much of it on-line or through catalog telephone orders. But if your mailbox is like mine, there are way too many catalogs in it. And they pile up much too quickly this time of year.
I like getting some of the catalogs, but many are too up-scale or trendy for my humble tastes. And getting duplicate or multiple catalogs from the same merchant can be a real pain.
Now there is a way to avoid this sore place in the hind parts, and do a favor for both the merchants and our environment.
It's called Catalog Choice, and it's a free service sponsored by the Ecology Center and endorsed by the National Wildlife Federation and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Here's how it works: go to www.catalogchoice.org and sign up. Your contact info will only be used for the purpose of declining (opting-out of) catalogs.
Catalog Choice has search facilities that allows you to find and decline any of the catalogs you are now receiving. YOU don't have to do anything beyond identifying the catalogs you don't want, or are getting multiple copies of.
Catalog Choice contacts the providers on your behalf, requesting that your name be removed from their mailing lists.
Okay, it will take up to ten weeks to process your request, so you should have started doing this more than two months ago. But next year, finding the Christmas cards amongst your stack of holiday mail will be easier, and you will have reduced your trash disposal and recycling duties by more than half.
There are significant environmental impacts from the catalog cycle. The annual production and disposal of direct mail alone consumes more energy than three million cars!
Think about it. Over eight million tons of trees are consumed each year in the production of paper catalogs. And nearly half of the planet's original forest cover has already disappeared. Forests have effectively disappeared in 25 countries, and another 29 have lost more than 90 percent of their forest cover.
Deforestation contributes between 20 and 25 percent of all carbon pollution, contributing to climate change. And more than one billion people living in poverty around the world depend on the forests for their livelihoods.
Shopping close to home makes environmental and economic sense, with gas at $3 a gallon. And even if you recycle your catalogs, it costs the merchants millions of dollars to produce and mail them out to you, reducing their profits without increasing their sales.
Catalog retailers like Lands' End and L.L. Bean are already on board this train, and many more will join them. Catalog Choice already has 225,000 users who are opting out of more than 2,500,000 catalogs.
Catalog Choice is good for you. It's good for the merchants. And it's good for the environment.
Merry Christmas! And remember to put www.catalogchoice.org on your computer favorites and e-mail Christmas card list this year.
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